I disagree. Biden slowly eroded his chance. Key moments were the beginning of his reelection campaign, the debate, and the failed assassination attempt on Trump. Because this election period is all about image, Biden hasn’t been able to keep up despite his intelligence and his strong and generally positive policies and record so far. In any other election year he’d be fine. At this moment he’s missed his chances to come back stronger than before. If his team and the DNC ran PR for a large corporation we’d be laughing them off of Twitter. They bumbled and through their combined negligence Trump has gained a stronger foothold with specifically the Right.

I’ll explain a little more: When you are in a position of leadership there is a default level of trust you should strive to maintain, and trust is very difficult to gain back. So…

1. Biden should have not sought reelection. However, because he did he should have come out and said that he believes he is best equipped to beat Trump. That if it became clear he wasn’t going to be able to that he would step aside for the best of this Nation and the people who put their trust in him. Boom. A leader who tells us straight and reinforces that he’s here for all of us.

2. Not sought any debate. It was always lose-lose without a monumental performance. Trump looks like normal Trump and ANY fumble lowers Biden’s image. Had he had that showing 12 years ago people would have laughed it off and he’d recover and probably do okay. That isn’t this timeline. Rather than going Dark Brandon and really leaning into his strengths, injecting caffeine straight into his bloodstream, and take a couple weeks of back-to-back calls, speeches, and talkshows with hard questions where he doesn’t back down, he just…let it simmer. Recovery chance critically missed.

3. The attempt on Trump’s life. This secured Biden in Trump’s shadow. Not because he lost any voters in particular, it likely didn’t shift the narrative and expectations. What happened is because Biden didn’t have a strong reelection foundation, despite great strides while in office, he allowed Trump to essentially camp out on his front lawn. Trump is a show man, which idiots mistake for charisma. Biden has moments of great leadership and a clarity which makes people want to follow him…at times. He lacks that spark which makes people want to follow consistently.

This leaves us with three options:

1. Keep Biden in and hope his name is enough to pull him back up, or something happens and all but guarantees a win.

2. Find someone people want to follow and have them be in the constant spotlight for the next four months. I can think of maybe four people who have the charisma and political clout to make this work. None of them have volunteered.

3. Nominate an individual who can make strong arguments against every position Trump takes and who will have historical significance if made President. This leads us to Harris. She is not particularly charismatic. Far as I’ve been able to tell, she CAN argue like a mofo. Charisma inspires confidence because it inspires hope, or at least grants the hopeless a direction. Lacking that doesn’t mean you can’t lead, it does mean you need to be stronger in other areas, and more importantly it means you only have to lead better than the other guy. This means Harris’s team needs a good writer for the moments where she needs to puff out her chest and square her shoulders, and also need to give her room to work her Prosecutor magic when needed.

So far as my information goes, this is where we’re at. Dems need to play hard ball, which might be the most worrisome thing of it all.